The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1887-12-13
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Delivered at the Brooklyn Taber-
naCle Yesterday.
TOO MUCH ADO ABOUT SMALL THINGS

night the Rev. L. De Witt Talmage, ID. D.,
preached at the tabernacle, this city, on "To
Much Ado About Small Things" His text
was: eye Blind Guides, Which Strains at a
Gnat, and Swallow Camel" Mathews % pa
The eloquent preacher said:
proverb is compact wisdom, knowledge
in chunks, a library in a sentence, the electric
ity of many clouds discharged in one bolt a
river put through mill race. When Christ
quotes the proverb of the text, He means to
set forth the ludicrous behavior of those who
make great buster about small sins and
have no appreciation of great ones.
In my text a small insect and large quad
ruped are brought into comparson-a gnat and
camel. You have in museum or on the des-
ert seen the latter. great awkward, sprawling
creature, with back two stories high, and stom-
ach having collection of reservoirs for desert
travel, an animal forbidden to the Jews as
food and in many literatures entitled ''the
ship of the DESERT The gnat spoken of in
the text is in the grub form. 1t is born in pool
or pond, after few weeks becomes chrysalis,
and then after few days becomes thegna rs
we recognize it. But the insect spoken of in
the text is in its very smallest shape. and it yet
inhabits the water-for my text is misprint
and ought to read ''strain out gnat.'
My text shows you the prince of inconsisten-
cies. A man after long observation has formed
the suspicion that in a cup of water ne IS
about to drink, there is grub Or the grand
parent of gnat. He goes and gets a sieve or
strainer. He takes the water and pours it
through the sieve in the broad light. He says,
II would rather do anything almost than
drink this water until this larya be extir-
pated." This water is brought under inqui-
sition. The experiment is successful The
water rushes through the sieve and leaves
against the side of the sieve the grub or gnat
Then the man carefully removes the insect
and drinks the water in placidity. But going
out one day, and hungry, he devours "ship
OF the DESERT" the camel, which the Jews
were forbidden to eat. The gastronomer has
no compunctions of conscience. He suffers
from no indigestion. He puts the lower law
under the cancels forefoot, and his upper law
over the hump OF the cancels back, and gives
one swallow and the dromedary disappears
forever: lie strained out a gnat, he swallowed
q camel.
While Christ's audience were vet smiling at
the appositeness and wit of His illustration
for smile they did in church, unless they were
too stupid to understand the hyperbole-
Christ practically said to them, "That is YOU"
Punctilious about small things; reckless about
affairs of great magnitude. No subject ever
tWlthered under q surgeons knife more bit
terly than did the Pharisees under Christ's
scalpel of truth. As an anatomist will take a
human body to pieces and put them under
his way to the heart of the dead Pharisee and
cuts it out and puts it under the glass of in
Spection for all generations to examine Those
Pharisees thought that Christ would hatter
them and compliment them, and how they
must have Wrlthed under the red hot words
as he said; Eye fools, We whited sepulchres,
we blind guides, which strain out gnat and
swallow camel''
There are in our day a great many gnats
strained out and great many camels swallow
the If iC {5,c1r14 II,
a few persons who are extensively engaged in
that business.
First: L remark, that all those ministers of
the Gospel are photographed in the text who
are very scrupulouS about the conventional
ties of religion, but put no particular stress
upon matters of vast importance. Church
services ought to be grave and solemn. There
IS no room for friyolity in religious conyoca-
ton. But there are illustrations and there are
hyperboles like that Of Christ in the text that
will irradiate with smiles any intelligent audi
tory. There are men like those blind
guides of the text who advocate only those
things i'll religious service which draw the cor
ners of the mouth down and denounee all
those things which have q tendency to draw
the corners OF the mouth up, and these men
will go into installations and to presbyteres,
and to conferences and to associations, their
pockets full of fine sieyes to strain out the
gnats, while in their own churches at home
every Sunday, there are fifty people sound
asleep. They make their churches great dor
mitory, and their somniferous sermons are a
cradle, and the drawled-out hymns o lullaby,
while some wakeful soul in a pew with her
fan keeps the flies off unconscious per-
sons approximate Now, 1 say it is worse to
sleep in church than to smile i'll church,
for the latter implies at least attention, &hile
the former implies the Indifference of Nthe
hearers and the stupidity of the speaker. In
old age, OF from physical infrmity, or from
long watching with the sick, drowsiness will
sometimes overpower one but when minister
of the Gospel looks off upon an audience and
finds healthy and intelligent people drug
Cling with drowsness it is time for him to
give out the doxology or pronounce the bene-
diction, The great fault of church services
today is not too much vivacity. but too much
somnolence. The one is an irritating gnat
that may be easily strained out: the
other is great, sprawling and sleepy-eyed
camel of the dry desert. In all our
Sabbath schools, in all our Bible classes, in all
our pulpits We need to brighten up our religi-
GUS message with such Christ-like yivacity as
we find in the text
/ take down from my library the biographies
of ministers and writers of past ages, inspired
and uninspired, who have done the most to
bring souls to Jesus Christ and L find that
without single exception they consecrated
their wit ard their humor to Christ. Elijah
used it when he advised the Baalites, as they
could not make their god respond telling them
to call louder, as then god might be sound
asleep or gone hunting. job used it when he
Sdlu 10 ms Sell-cOncelteu COinIOrterS, IVY 1SQOm
will die with you" Christ not only used it in
the text, but when He ironically complimented
the putrefied Pharsees, saying, The whole
need not physician" and when by one word
He described the cunning of Herod, saying,
$50 We and tell that fox" MatthewsHenry's
commentaries from the first page to the last
eoruscated with humor as summer clouds with
heat lightning. John Bunyan's writings are
as full of humor as they are Of saving truth,
and there is not an aged man here who has
ever read "PiIgrims Progress" who does not
remember that while reading it he smiled as
often as he wept. Chrysostom, George Her.
bert, Robert South, John Wesley, George
Whitedc.d, Jeremy Taylor, Rowland Hill,
Nettleton, George G. Finney, and all the men
of the past who greatly advanced the king
dom Of God consecraIed their wit and their
humor to the cause Of Christ. So it has been
i'll all the ages, and L say to these young the
illogical students, who cluster in these ser
vices Sabbath by Sabbath sharpen your wits
as keen as scymetais, and then take them into
this holy war.
1t is a very short bridge between smile
and tear, a suspension bridge from eye to lip,
and it is soon crossed over, and smile is some
times Just AS sacred as q tear. There is as
much religion, and / think a little more, in a
spring morning than in starless midnight.
Religious work without any humor or wit in
it is a banquet with a side OF beef, and that
raw. and 10 condiments and no dessert guc-